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A J ale of iwo Women
Marion Stonemnan Douglas and Mlaijoric 1 larris Carr
Segment: Against Florida Panther Telemetry Program
Source: Interview with Sharyn Richardson, Secretary of Friends of the Everglades and personal assistant
to Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Videotaped at the Douglas House in Coconut Grove.
Length of Segment: 00:03:10
Transcript and audio recording are copyright 1983-2009 Florida International University.
TRANSCRIPT
Interviewer: "Let's go back, a little bit, because I think this plane might interfere a good recording of
what you were saying. You said there seems to be always something coming up, just when you see the
light at the end of the tunnel. Could you go through that again?"
Richardson: "Well there's... okay, there's always something. For instance, we were working on possibly
doing as much as we could about the panther, about... we were very upset about the telemetry
program, and we had sort of launched a letter writing campaign to different...well to the Governor, to
Colonel Brantley of the Game and Fish Commission, really asking was it necessary to have a telemetry
program because we knew of two panthers that had died as a result of the process of being tagged or
fitted with radio collars for the program had killed, actually killed, two panthers and we were really
upset about that. I mean there's so few. There's like nineteen now. So, we were in the process of writing
all this, writing all these letters, and all of a sudden, Senator Neil, from Bradenton, introduced a panther
bill into the legislature or into...during the legislative session, and so all of a sudden here we had
something totally new and this was actually just prior to the start of the legislative session. And he was
talking about the possibility of introducing a bill and so all of a sudden we have this new person, Senator
Neil, that we have never been in contact with before, that I know of, since I've been here, and here, all
of a sudden, we have this new correspondent. He was sending all of his ideas about the points to put in
the bill, and all of a sudden, somebody up there decided that they were going to put a moratorium on
the telemetry program. First they said it was because of the weather, because of the heat and it was too
hot for the animals to be chased all over the place and then tranquilized and then they decided to put
the moratorium on it, until January. Well, now this new bill has come along and I think it...well basically
it moves the jurisdiction of panther control out of just the Game and Fish Commission's hands, into the
panther committee's hands which what they do now with the telemetry program I'm not really sure, but
we think that there's the possibility they might just completely disband with the telemetry program. So
it's just you know like one thing leads to another. There's always something.
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